He still lives, an honored citizen of the State he loved as a son loves the mother who bore and nursed him. Therefore I shall not use his real name. Eric S., as I shall call him, was an intimate friend of my brother Herbert, and as much at home in our house as if he were, in very deed, one of the blood and name. He had visited us in Newark, and made warm friends there, during the past year. Mr. Terhune had had long and serious consultations with him since we came to Virginia, and, within a few days, as the war-cloud took form, had urged him to accompany us to New Jersey, or, at least, to promise to come to us should hostilities actually begin between the two sections. The lad (scarcely twenty-one) was an ardent Unionist, and, although a member of a crack volunteer company in Richmond, had declared to us that nothing would ever induce him to bear arms under the Rebel government. Mea and her spouse went up-stairs early, and the rest of us were in hearty sympathy with our guest. He had not taken an active share in the discussion, and his distrait manner and sober face prepared us, in part, for the disclosure that followed the departure of the others. He had been credibly and confidentially informed that a mighty pressure would be brought to bear upon the convention, at their next sitting, to force the Ordinance of Secession. If it were carried, by fair means or foul, every man who could bear arms would be called into the field. While he talked, the boy stood against the mantel—erect, lithe, and handsome—the typical mother’s and sister’s darling, yet manly in every look and lineament. The thought tore through my imagination while I looked at him: “And it is material like _this_ that will go to feed the maw of War!—such flesh and blood as his that will be mangled by bullet and shell!” I had never had the ghastly reality brought so near to me until that moment. “Oh-h!” I shuddered. “You won’t stay to be shot at like a mad dog!” The first bright smile that had lighted his face was on it. “It isn’t being shot at that I am thinking of.” The gleam faded suddenly. “I don’t think I am a coward. It doesn’t run in the blood. But”—flinging out his arm with a passionate gesture that said more than his words—“I think _that_ would be paralyzed if I were to lift it against the dear old flag!” Before he left it was agreed privately, between him and my husband, that he would try his fortune on the other side of Mason and Dixon’s line, should the axe fall that would sever Virginia from the Union her sons had been mainly instrumental in creating. Sunday came and went. Such a strange, sad Sunday as it was! with the marked omission, in every pulpit, of the prayer for the President of the United States and others in authority; with scanty congregations in the churches, and growing throngs of excited talkers at the street corners, and knots of dark-browed men in hotel lobbies, and the porches of private houses.